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ME3 was a labour of love for the dev team. To finish a game like ME3, it literally takes months of intense bug fixing and certification. At this point, our goal is to polish the game to an extremely high quality – not to add extra content. You hopefully see a lot of that polish in ME3.

During that certification time, we had a small team of developers begin to craft the ‘From Ashes’ content, with the intent to finish production on it long after ME3 was out of our hands as a dev team.

However, because the plot of ME3 is so richly interwoven with the character interactions and moments, you simply cannot use a DLC module to ‘insert’ a new character. As we’ve mentioned before, that character has to be planned and the framework has to be established ahead of time for us to build off of with the DLC module. You may have seen a similar framework developed in ME2 for the Zaeed and Kasumi characters. We wanted Javik to be a fully featured squad member, with deep dialogue throughout the game – and we needed him to be accessible via the character selection GUI (which you cannot simply ‘overwrite’ with DLC). Thus, certain elements of the Javik appearance and some of the VO needed to be included on the disc. That is a fact. But that doesn’t mean the content was created, and then removed. It is a necessity of adding a rich character presence in our game.

That, however, is the extent of it. As mentioned above, the DLC is over 600 mb. The DLC data holds the mission itself, the cinematic flashback moments, the cinematic dialogue interactions with Javik, his weapon, the appearances for squad members… everything that makes the adventure a cohesive experience. ‘From Ashes’ is not Javik’s character model. It is the story of finding the last remaining Prothean, and how his tale interweaves with Commander Shepard’s as he struggles to destroy the Reaper threat.

In a statement to Game Informer, EA added:

“From Ashes is a 600 MB+ download with all new content, including the mission on Eden Prime, new dialogue options and conversations with Javik, new cinematics, the Prothean weapon, and new appearances for all squad members. All of the above content was completed while the main game was in certification and are not available on the disc.

“As stated previously, in order to seamlessly integrate Javik into the core campaign, certain framework elements and character models needed to be put on disc. We did something similar with Zaeed and Kasumi in Mass Effect 2.”

I have no reason to doubt either Gamble or EA. As I said in an update to my post yesterday, there was no indication in the video that anything other than this character was on-disc. I don’t think that BioWare is lying, as many have claimed, and I see it as somewhat beside the point. (You may disagree, but again – I think it’s mostly irrelevant.)

Let’s take a step back and see if we can summarize what’s been going on, what the problem is, and maybe a way forward.

The Story So Far

1. Anger at BioWare has been heating up ever since the EA acquisition. Fans began to see a change in not just the quality of the games being produced, but in the new company culture and attitude toward gamers. This led to an unfortunate episode of anger and vitriol directed at one of BioWare’s writers, Jennifer Hepler, who became something of an avatar of resentment for angry fans.

2. The release of Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 both disappointed and upset fans. Both games appeared to have strayed from their origins – especially Dragon Age 2. Complaints over the writing and changes in gameplay were myriad. Some of Hepler’s comments about not liking to actually play games made fans worry that BioWare’s games were going to become more like interactive movies rather than complex role-playing games.

3. The release of Star Wars: The Old Republic was seen as a disaster by many fans. The game had performance issues and was widely seen as having too many long cut-scenes, sub-par voice acting and writing, and nothing particularly unique to differentiate it from other MMORPGs. Anger continued to build.

4. With the release of Mass Effect 3 that bubbling anger reached a tipping point. The ending angered fans more than anything, though other numerous complaints also rose to the surface:

The inclusion of day-one DLC which made the game playable in full only at an extra cost; the presence of a “story mode” that stripped out even more gameplay; perceptions that the writing was once again sub-par; the inability to port over Shepard’s face from earlier games; and the belief that fans were being ignored by the gaming media and the developers themselves.

And that’s where we find ourselves today.

Now a few thoughts on the past few days since Mass Effect 3 hit shelves.

Context Is King

As a relative newcomer to the games of BioWare, I didn’t understand the anger at first – at all – and when I saw some homophobic comments left at site’s like Metacritic, I believed that the backlash was a coordinated homophobic attack on the game. Anti-gay groups have done things like this before. This opinion was born out of a lack of context.

As commenters angrily responded to that piece, I did some more digging.

This led me toward a more comprehensive understanding of the issues. And while I still find the quick reaction on Metacritic problematic (it gives off the impression of spamming and lends credence to the claims of homophobia) and the Hepler incident a serious low-point for fans, I now think I understand more completely why so many people are upset. Largely it’s the result of feeling ignored. The ending of the game angered many long time fans more than anything, but the confluence of the unsatisfying ending plus all the other issues made that disappointment fester.

I don’t believe that BioWare was lying about the DLC being included on the disc. I have no reason to not believe Gamble or EA on this question. I take them at their word.

Nevertheless, I think they badly misunderstand how this sort of thing is perceived by fans. Even if they did need to include the Prothean character on disc, and offer the rest via download, what they fail to understand is that charging people for an extra mission that takes place during the main storyline and contains lore that many fans deem essential to the narrative and choices their Shepard needs to make, is going to be seen as a ripoff. This impression will exist whether or not the DLC was on-disc or not.

It’s also hard to believe that this side mission was only thought of after the fact. Whether or not this is true, it’s a very difficult pill to swallow. Truth is important, but when it comes to running a business the perception of what’s true and what’s false is just as important. Sometimes more so.

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One more thing. I am happy that EA/Bioware finally addressed it’s customers and explained itself. The sad thing is that the dialogue between the developer/publisher and the fans wasn’t there in the first place.

But the underlying point is still there, they lied. Framework this, rich story that, but they still said that it wasn’t on the disk. That was a lie, plain and simple. All the pretty words don’t change that. Combine this with everything else that’s happened recently and I can’t imagine there’s still trust with EAware.

To be honest it is probably likely that whomever originally said the content was not on the disk did not actually know whether it was. I don’t think it was a straight out lie. The problem is that most of the producers/marketing folk on a game don’t actually know how how the content is structured. They probably did not realize how much pre-work had to go in to accommodate this DLC. I ran into this sort of issue in the past while working on games and it doesn’t surprise me. But in the end I think this is just a mistake, not intentional misleading of the consumer.

First Erik, may I say that it was big of you to admit that your first piece had not gotten to the core issues, and that you had not looked into things beyond the trolls on Metacritic. Most would have left it as is, but you took the time to reapproach the subject matter from a newly gained perspective.

I am one of those firmly entrenched in the “it’s all an indoctrination attempt” camp, and if that is the case it will be fantastic, but I weep at the thoughtless manner in which they executed this plan. At this point there is no way for BioWare to come out of this unscathed. I agree the best thing they can do is continue things through free dlc, which perhaps was even the plan all along, but thanks to the way things have been left with little to no comment from their staff, many in the community will only think of it as a “We messed up bad, but we’re going to spin it as if we did it all on purpose” kind of thing. Unfortunately I doubt we can ever know the truth of the matter, discounting the possibility that they just come out saying “We’re sorry you feel this way, but that’s the ending you get”, which would be kind of obvious.

I think where the problem in much of the critics eyes towards fans is they only see us complaining, and assume we want a sugar plum fairy ending. For most nothing could be further from the truth. I expected my Shephard to likely sacrifice himself. What we do want is the endings to make any sort of sense in relation to the 5 years of gaming previously put into this series. We want choices that are different. We want Shephard to be Shephard, because as it stands the last 15-20 minutes of the game, we suddenly are playing some blanched, spineless twit, who just accepts what he’s told, and plays along. That’s not my Shephard, it’s not anyone’s Shephard. It’s everything the Mass Effect series was NOT. And then to boot the last “choice” (I’m trying really hard not to include anything substantial in the way of spoilers here) has a drastic effect that completely discredits and ruins the franchise forever. And again, most feel that their Shephard would NEVER make this decision. Now there are HUGE threads on Bioware Social Network about how much of this plays into the indoctrination attempt theory, but I worry that if this what they had planned, people will not give them long enough to implement it. Mike Gamble’s only major response on Twitter was “if you knew what we had planned, well you’d hold on to your copies forever”. But unfortunately, some are going to not believe him and trade in what they feel is worthless plastic now. I for one thought ME3 was the greatest game I had ever played until I got to the end. Now I can’t even touch my Xbox to play ANY game, it just makes me so damn depressed. I have three wonderful games that I can’t think of playing because of how it currently ends. That’s not a good feeling at all. I understand that BioWare doesn’t want to comment until a significant portion of players from non-NA markets get a chance to beat the game, but if they don’t say something more official soon, it’s going to be too late.

I, and most of the games fans do not condone the actions of a few trollish characters who have attacked BioWare employees. But we are resolute in making them understand that this is a PR nightmare, they’ve made a TERRIBLE mistake, be it intentional to shock us with a real ending later, or because they think their ending is more artistic; whatever the case may be.

WE DON’T NECESSARILY WANT A HAPPY ENDING, WE WANT THE ENDING THIS SERIES DESERVES!